While written records are lacking, the plantations of old trees and the development of cherry culture indicate that the French early planted cherries in Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island and in the early settlements on the St. Lawrence River. The cherry is a favorite fruit of the French and the venerable trees that survived on the sites of their settlements when the English came into possession of Canada are proof sufficient that the émigrés from Provence or Normandy, fruit districts of France from which many French settlers came, brought with them seeds of the cherry with those of other fruits. Peter Kalm in his _Travels into North America_ in 1771,[24] records the very general culture of all the hardy fruits in Canada and leaves the impression that such had been the case from the first settlements. [24] Kalm, Peter _Travels into North America_ 1771. CHERRIES IN NEW ENGLAND The cherry came to New England with the first settlers. This we are told in all the records of early New England in which the conditions of the country are described and of it we have confirmatory proof in many enormous cherry trees, Sweet and Sour, both about ancient habitations and as escapes from cultivation in woods, fields and fence rows, all pointing to the early cultivation of this fruit. The early records are very specific. Thus, to quote a few out of an embarrassment of references: Francis Higginson writing in 1629, after naming the several other fruits then under cultivation in Massachusetts, notes that the Red Kentish is the only cherry cultivated.[25] In the same year, the 16th of March, 1629, a memorandum of the Massachusetts Company shows that "Stones of all sorts of fruites, as peaches, plums, filberts, cherries, pear, aple, quince kernells" were to be sent to New England.[26] These seeds, provided by the home company with forethought of the need of orchards in the colony, evidently produced fruit trees sufficient to supply both hunger and thirst; for John Josselyn, who made voyages to New England in 1638, 1639 and 1663, writing of "New England's Rarities Discovered," says:[27] "Our fruit Trees prosper abundantly, Apple-trees, Pear-trees, Quince-trees, Cherry-trees, Plum-trees, Barberry-trees. I have observed with admiration, that the Kernels sown or the Succors planted produce as fair and good fruit, without grafting, as the tree from whence they were taken: the Countrey is replenished with fair and large Orchards. It was affirmed by one Mr. Woolcut (a magistrate in Connecticut Colony) at the Captains Messe (of which I was) aboard the Ship I came home in, that he made Five hundred Hogsheads of Syder out of his own Orchard in one year. Syder is very plentiful in the Countrey, ordinarily sold for ten shillings a Hogshead.